i'm shah shothat short and he's tall, dark and handsome. >> you got my favorite? can we pop it up? >> nobody knows who that guy is right there. that is the captain of the cap olympic team which is the greatest sport team in history, excepting me with two hits in little league. time for "morning joe." yesterday press secretary jay carney like an intrepid weather channel anchor stood and let the wind and rain pummel him for our entertainment purposes. >> on the irs does the president believe they're being truthful and does he think the leadership there needs to change? >> we know part of it's fact. it is not in the if anymore. >> categorically -- >> that is your opinion.

all right? >> it's twice as many prosecutions as all previous administrations combined. that's not even close. >> is there a siege mentality back there in the west wing right now? >> absolutely not. >> siege mentality? why would you stha? it the vat of boiling oil in the moat? is that why you say that? >> good morning. look at that beautiful shot of new york city on this thursday morning, may 16th. welcome to "morning joe." with us onset we have msnbc contributor mark barnicle. you look nice today. >> thank you, mika. >> you're wearing jeans. >> and green shoes. >> i knew it couldn't last forever. >> the good ones. >> of deutsch incorporated donny deutsch. whatever. and in washington, deputy washington bureau chief for "time" magazine michael crowley. and nbc news white house correspondent peter alexander. a lot to cover this morning, willie. it starts obviously with the president's news conference.

it was late yesterday evening dealing with the irs scandal. i felt good about it because he was doing the thing that he doesn't like to do which was get out in front of something and be emphatic and forceful and say it's going to get fixed. it's going to get done and then walked right out the door. i still have some questions but overall point of ew, willie? >> well, in one scandals that are plaguing the white house. he release the e-mails on benghazi, accepted the resignation of the acting head of the irs and called for a media shield law regarding the ap story so he finally personally encountered all three and took action. >> i think that front and center confronting something directly to everybody is very effective. donny, i'll let you speak the one knock on him throughout his presidency is that kind of lack of grabbing testosterone take charge. having said that, pew, 44% of this country is following benghazi. none of these three things are going to stick.

we get hysterical in the media. come election time november 2014 voters are going to care what they always care about. their pocketbooks. >> okay. >> that simple. i also think vote aerts thrs at point are so anesthetized. you know, benghazi. maybe the democrats are trying to shift the message. wow. that's what politicians do. we get very hysterical. to the average person out there trying to live their lives none of this stuff sticks. >> i disagree. i think one of them will. michael crowley, if one were to stick which would it be? >> i think the irs scandal. >> yeah. >> resonates with americans in a really powerful way. people are predisposed to hate the agency and nothing makes people go wild like the idea that there's kind of political bias, that the power of the government is being used to pursue a partisan political agenda by people who ought to be nonpartisan and objective. that goes straight to the heart

of something that americans really cherish. i think that, you know, benghazi, i think people find a little confusing. as donnie noted the polls suggest people are not that riled up about it. frankly i'm not sure if you ask the average american whether they think it's more important on the ap case, you know, a counterterror investigation versus the right to the press, i'm not sure how it breaks down. it may not be so good for the press. >> that one only sticks with us. mark barnicle do you agree it's the irs? then i'll get into the news of it all. >> the irs certainly of the three has longer legs in terms of the story and its impact on the american people. but i was interested in peter. peter alexander, front page story in "the times" today about the obama administration, about the president himself. we were speaking yesterday about the link between the president's sort of stand offishness with congress with the senate and the house in terms of relationships, in terms of the consistency of his relationships or lack thereof. so in effect he has been

operating for several months, perhaps a couple years, with no net in terms of support up on the hill for him. is there a sense in the white house, off of what jay carney was asked, is there a siege mentality within the white house? do they feel particularly threatened by the development of all three things right now? >> i think underline that point that you're making that just yesterday only a couple within 100 hours of all the scandals sort of happening at once you saw the headlines saying d.c., the nation's capital has turned on the president. that would imply that they were already on his side. there was obviously a lot of challenge to this white house given those slim relationships at times with the folks on capitol hill. the white house would insist they don't feel like they're under a siege mentality. the white house would tell you they think the irs issue is the one that really does have the most legs, the real issue, the one that does stick in some form. they put out, i was in that briefing yesterday where they put out a hundred documents. the benghazi e-mails, a hundred

pages of previously classified e-mails. and notes that as you scan through them and it's complicated information, it appears to show no real white house interference in the process. it shows some bureaucratic wrangling throughout that case. but i think it is going to give more ammunition to the critics certainly. the white house adviser senior administration officials telling me early this morning they expect darrell issa to continue with his efforts and pursue this very issue. one of the points we should note specifically -- >> peter? >> go ahead. >> they're acting so calm but they put that guy behind you. he is going to run over you. >> we got a big -- open the shot. we got a little concrete area. he can't get over this. >> really? they have to actually mow right there right now? interesting. okay. >> yes. >> all part of the coverup. >> you are the elite media. >> that's it. >> hey buddy. >> my lord. okay.

>> nice mower. >> good job. >> one thing i'll say about the irs, donnie, i think you're wrong about the impact. 2014 if you think republicans aren't going to use this as confirmation that big government is out to get you, you're wrong. >> let me push back. i do think they'll use it. i think it is going to back fire. in reality it's a couple rogue guys. this is not the president. it doesn't go up to the president. he is going to throw anybody overboard -- >> you heard the crazy stuff these people say about the president when they're clinging to nothing. >> you're right. basically what it is going to do is force in the primaries to galvanize the tea party. you'll get more extremist candidates. they'll lose in general election. come general election time if somebody voted against background checks for guns, if somebody is still doing the crazy, crazy social issue stuff, i disagree with you. >> i would have to give a lot of credibility to donnie's argument because nowhere is america better represented in terms of who we are than in the upper east side of manhattan. >> i'm not speaking as a representative.

i'm speaking as a wise, grizzled media analyst. >> you're dismissing that scandal. aren't you viscerally offended and upset by a government agency singling out americans? >> of course i am. i don't think it's the democratic party. i think it's a few idiots. okay? i think the american people are sophisticated enough to know that. >> i think you can be reasonable and assume it was a few idiots. >> also giving the american people a lot of credit. >> to this point if i can jump in i feel like i think a lot of people are not clear on this that although they screwed up horribly what the people at the irs were trying to do was address a huge problem, structural problem in american politics which is these nonprofit groups. >> right. >> are pretending to essentially be social welfare charities. >> yes. >> they're pumping huge amounts of money into elections. it is a problem for all americans on both sides. >> yes. unfortunately they only looked at the conservative side of things which is an even bigger problem i think. let me get to the news. we'll talk about it. the head of the irs has been forced out as the fallout from

the irs scandal spreads. acting commissioner steven miller had been aware of the agency's effort to put greater scrutiny on conservative groups as early as 2012. miller told staffers in internal memo that he'll be departing in early june when his acting assignment ends. but in a news conference last night president obama announced miller's resignation and described his own outrage over the whole issue. >> the misconduct that it uncovered is inskewable. it's inexcusable and americans are right to be angry about it, and i am angry about it. i will not tolerate this kind of behavior in any agency but especially in the irs. given the power and reach it has in all of our lives. as i said earlier it should not matter what political stripe you're from. the fact of the matter is that the irs has to operate with

absolute integrity. >> so i'm just reading. we've been covering the different players in this including lois lerner, who heads up the irs division on tax-exempt organizations and was aware from nearly the beginning of all this. i mean, i'm assuming that's next. i'm not sure -- i'm not sure about this firing. i think it obviously makes sense because the guys at the top but i would expect more. am i alone here? >> no. hearings begin i think tomorrow in the house. >> i don't know if we need a hearing for that one. the initial republican response to the move was positive. congressman darrell issa calling it a good first step, but there is a full schedule of hearings looming on capitol hill as just mentioned. judging by reaction of some republicans earlier in the day the focus on the scandal is not going away. >> these are the tactics of the third world. these are the tactics of places that don't have the freedoms and

independence we have here in this country and it is shocking to americans that this would come to light in the way that it has. >> there was an effort to bring the power of the federal government to bear on those the administration disagreed with. in the middle of a heated national election. it actually could be, could be criminal. >> my question isn't about who's going to resign. my question is who is going to jail over this scandal? >> all right. at a house judiciary hearing attorney general eric holder said the justice department would look into whether any false statements made by the irs officials broke the law and whether the civil rights of conservative groups has been violated. i guess those are fair questions. >> i tell you, though, to me this is the booby trap. i look at the three guys who stood up there and i'm an american and you're up there at the pulpit saying they're going to take your guns. they're going to take your money out of your pocket. the american people have a detector that says, what are you

doing? this is not -- and i think it brings out -- every time that the democrats stumble it brings out the worst in the republicans. and they end up shooting themselves in the foot and you just saw it right there. >> really? >> really. i'm an american. that's not talking to me. americans have a great detector of people looking out for them versus exploitive, angry, pugilistic, out of touch politicians. >> i see this as red meat just handed to them. >> on some of the issues like guns there was an imagined threat, a paranoia. but this actually happened. they targeted conservative groups. those are two totally different things. >> yes they did, a few people. i think the american people are sophisticated to understand that in bureaucracies there are going to -- this is not directed by the president. as far as you know yet. >> i would be surprised. i would stand corrected if it was. >> most people regard john boehner, mitch mcconnell, and whoever else is on tv talking

about this as talking wall paper. >> exactly. >> in the background. what they do care about, i think most people, is a feeling that government is incompetent. >> right. >> it's not up to the job. they're not getting the best bang for the tax dollar. when you pay taxes. schools are lousy. the roads have potholes in them. bridges are crumbling. what does government do? that's the big vulnerability for the democrats, for anyone in power. the vulnerability is you're incompetent. it's time to move on from this. >> fair point. i just want to get peter alexander. is he still there and can we hear him? >> he's been run over by the lawn mower. >> listen, we've got the benghazi e-mails to cover and the ap story as well but just on the irs scandal as we make a transition here, inside the white house is there a sense of the political vulnerability that's been put into play here given that story? >> reporter: they recognize there are criticisms they appeared slow and disengaged on

this issue but say there was really only so much this white house could do. they had to wait for the inspector general's report to come out. and just as we speak to you he comes back. >> oh, my. look at this. i'm telling you. >> you want the real political circus? it's right here behind us. >> that is a nixonian tactic. i think nixon did that every time peter opens his mouth the lawn mower comes. >> it's a television filibuster happening as we speak right now. but suffice to say, they think that the document, the ig report shows the white house had no involvement in this, that it didn't go outside of the irs as is documented. obviously republicans are going to want to pursue that a little bit further. keeping with the conversation you're having right now this white house is already trying to turn the page. they sort of blasted us with the press conference, the remarks by the president late yesterday, handing out those 100 pages of documents late yesterday as well to try to put it out all at once. today the white house is going to try to focus on other things. they told me within the last hour that a little later today the president is going to be

convening the joint chiefs here as well as the defense secretary to focus on that issue of sexual misconduct in the military. obviously that is a very significant and sensitive issue. the more we learn about more than one case of people who were in charge of trying to prevent that from taking place ultimately being the ones accused of the attacks themselves. he is hosting the prime minister of turkey today. that is another significant issue they recognize shall the issue of syria almost seems like one they'd prefer to be talking about these days. tomorrow the president goes to baltimore like he did to austin last week. the desire is to focus on manufacturing infrastructure, the things you say americans really care about, but a lot of those things clearly they recognize are going to be drowned out by the conversations surrounding them. >> good choice of words, peter alexander, being drowned out by a lawn mower as we speak. stand by. we have the other stories as well. i know you're in the middle of all of them, peter. things got a bit heated on capitol hill yesterday as attorney general eric holder faced questions from the house judiciary committee.

the hearing's primary focus was the justice department's use of secret subpoenas to obtain phone records from the associated press reporters as part of a doj investigation. however, while discussing a separate matter, holder lashed out at congressman darrell issa. >> i'm sure there must have been a good reason why only the to and from parts were -- >> yes. you didn't want us to see the details. mr. attorney general, knowing the to and from -- >> typically -- i'm not going to stop talking now. you characterize something as -- >> mr. chairman, would you inform the witness as to the rules of the committee? >> -- and is too consistent with the way in which you conduct yourself as a member of congress. it's unacceptable and it's shameful. >> wow. okay. so this could play into the point you were making. i see you shaking your head. why? you think they are totally over reaching? >> yeah. i think the problem with the republican brand, the republican faces, as they are angry, the

american people don't get a sense the republicans want to move it forward, that their agenda is to just kill the president. and that is their agenda. they keep showing their faces as angry, stretching, whatever it takes from a vitriolic point away versus what is right for the american people. of course it's partisan on both sides. every time the republicans do give them a piece of red meat they don't handle it in the appropriate way. they show their ugly fangs. and this is the problem with this party. >> michael crowley, do you agree? >> i think that in particular on benghazi that's threatening to become a case study in over reach. the polls show that the country's pretty divided on this. republicans have a slight advantage i think with independents but i think the more they drive this the more people are going to be wondering why we're still talking about this thing that happened in september and they're really reaching a point of diminishing returns.

i think it will be very interesting to see how republicans play it from here out particularly after those e-mails didn't contain a smoking gun. i would just say, you know, you have to have a little bit of sympathy for holder who seems to spend about a third of his time as attorney general sitting up in congress getting harassed and grilled by these guys. you remember he came out of the gate with that khalid sheik muhammed trial he wanted to have and the white house didn't have his back. then it turned into this fast and furious scandal the republicans were obsessed with. it totally fell flat and the rest of the country -- they were calling for holder's resignation and constantly grilling him. now he is back again. with holder specifically you have a guy who is kind of at the end of his rope with these guys. >> you mentioned the benghazi e-mails. let's go there as we try to get all the headlines in today. i'd love to get the college loan story in as well. the white house is looking to put to rest the issue of how it handled the attack on the u.s. consulate in benghazi following months of criticism from the

right. yesterday the obama administration released 100 pages of e-mails describing the interagency debate over how to describe last year's september 11 attack. the e-mails show that cia deputy director mike morell was the individual who requested references to al qaeda and other extremist groups be removed from the official talking points, not white house officials as some republicans have suggested. so that is more information shedding light on the benghazi situation and what was going on inside the white house. >> to donnie's point i think republicans want all roads to lead back to the white house and all three of those stories. and so far they don't. we're talking about the irs. you're right about that. the ap story not connected to the white house. if you read these e-mails, peter alexander, it doesn't look from what we saw in the 100 pages of e-mails at least that the white house was tinkering in this. it looked like the cia or state department debate. >> you're right. and fortunately the lawn mower has moved over to the third

fairway right now so i can talk to you. what you really see in the 100 pages of e-mails and one page of notes is the intense jostling that took place between diplomatic officials, largely the state department, and the intelligence officials at the cia. obviously republicans are still going to pounce on some of the specific details. lindsay graham last night saying you don't need to be sherlock holmes to see that this was an effort to protect the president just ahead of the 2012 election. but i want to show you two e-mails if i can. first, this is actually a set of notes that a senior intelligence official tells us was provided by -- it was changed, revised by deputy director of the cia mike morell where he crossed out a lot of specific language referring to al qaeda, also referring to past cia warnings in the region. this is part of the scrubbing down the republicans have been so upset with. the senior intelligence official says the deputy cia director, himself, independently and proactively made those changes.

that it was without any pressing by the state department or by the white house. but if you see one of the final versions before the final versions of the talking points come out, there is one other e-mail that a lot of people will be talking about today. this one was actually sent by then cia director mike morell's boss. david patraeus, i can show you that on the screen quickly where he says among other things i'd just as soon not use this then referring to the fact that it doesn't actually reference any of the warnings that had taken place in that region at the time. he sort of acknowledges these things are so watered down. nonetheless, it doesn't appear the white house really had any interference in terms of its role. >> i want to say something and pick up a little on mike's point. stop selling evil and sell incompetence. it is very simple. these aren't evil people. they're incompetent. they're over their head. benghazi, ap, irs, wrap it up in a red bow and say they have fallen and can't get up instead of painting the devil. the american people can accept

that argument. >> benghazi is a little different because i mean the idea the republicans are trying to claim that the benghazi e-mails and what happened in benghazi, tragedy, four americans were killed. >> yes. >> that if it had been exposed further during the course of the election that mitt romney could have beaten barack obama on the terrorism issue is ludicrous, totally ludicrous. what this is if you read the e-mails and follow the story, the fact of the matter is that we had very poor practically none intelligence on the ground in benghazi, human intelligence sources. we had none. we did not know what was going on. >> that's incompetence. >> for nearly two days. incompetence? i don't know whether i'd label it incompetence but it is an intelligence failure that. >>'s what i would sell. that's the point. >> go ahead, michael. real quick. >> thank you. there was no great -- if this was a coverup it was a huge failure. the facts, the salient facts

about that attack came out. all americans when they voted on election day knew that four americans had been killed in benghazi. they knew there was a security failure. they knew libya was not a pretty situation. and they knew that the president had been a little bit slow in accurately describing what happened. in a way the president got the worst of both worlds. they were a little slow and a little clumsy on the messaging and they paid for it. romney hit him for it. it was not a successful coverup. voters knew everything they had to know. at the end of the day, what did the white house really get away with here? there might have been some effort to spin the talking points a little bit. what we saw yesterday that actually the cia, the story here is really the cia. it is not a story about hillary clinton but a guy at the cia nobody has ever heard of. >> yeah. all right. i guess we'll continue to pick this apart, though. and look through it. peter alexander, i don't know if the coverup continues at the white house. thank you very much with the lawn mower. we appreciate it. >> peter will be back at 8:30 with the guy with the leaf

blower. >> oh, the leaf blower. >> heavy machinery day. >> all right. thanks, peter. michael crowley, thank you as well. >> thank you. >> in developing news overnight, at least six people were killed and 14 still missing after a giant set of twisters ripped through north texas. let's go to meteorologist bill karins who has been tracking the storm system there. >> up to this point we had a very quiet spring, very little in the way of tornado action. we didn't even have many last night but the one that went through granbury, texas was strong enough to destroy about 75 homes according to the hood county sheriff. a lot of those homes destroyed to the ground. flattened. again, six fatalities and as many as 14 people still missing. police and rescue has been going through the night through the rubble trying to find people that may have survived. 8,000 res dments this small town and, again, this is 40 miles southwest of ft. worth. let me show you on the map. this is eastern time. so local time is 7:42. that's when the tornado warning was issued. the tornado did a path similar

to this, dove to the right at the end. the storm, itself, hit the town right about 8:00 so it was right before dark that they saw the worst of it and then the storm began to accelerate and go to the south. the first reports of the tornado were right at 8:00 over granbury. one guy in his church at a bible study said all of a sudden it was severe hail and then all of a sudden objects started lifting up around them as they ran inside. the tornado literally was fo forming right over the top of them in granbury. they had about ten to 15 minutes of lead time with the tornado sirens and that was about it. also as the storm went just south of cleburne it was one mile wide at about 9:00 at night. there was also significant damage there. so, mika, we do not expect any more severe storms like this this morning or as we go through the later portion of the day. last night was just another example it only takes one tornado. we didn't have many last night to do extreme damage. >> bill, thank you very much. we'll be back in touch with you. coming up on "morning joe" dr.

jeffrey sachs joins us, also nbc's chuck todd. martha stewart is going to be here on the set. i can't wait. >> my girl. >> i love her. no. she is my girl. >> my girl. >> your girl? >> she's my girl. >> you stay away from her. okay? are you going to embarrass me? >> you know when that "post" article came out -- >> he already has. >> i know. >> potentially a romantic thing between me and -- no, no. you remember when the cover of "the post" said martha wants to be set up with a guy? >> yes, yes. >> well, on access hollywood or one of those a match maker came on and said the three guys they would set her up with was jack nicholson, myself. >> really. >> yeah. and i can't remember the third. >> that doesn't make sense. >> what it read was people -- >> no, donnie, it can't be. >> i'm not saying she would do this. this was an objective third party put us together. >> what? >> you're wrong. >> i'm just reporting the news. >> she is looking for a relationship that would last. that would not work.

what are you, like five minutes? you're the five-minute guy. >> she just canceled her appearance. >> we'll let martha speak to this. >> i love her. please don't mess it up for me. >> i love martha. she's my bud. >> okay. >> also singer/song writer. >> wow. >> yeah. i know. it's over. paul anka will be here. look at that shot of new york city. alec, for this mission i upgraded your smart phone.

♪ right. but the most important feature of all is... the capital one purchase eraser. i can redeem the double miles i earned with my venture card to erase recent travel purchases. and with a few clicks, this mission never happened. uh, what's this button do? [ electricity zaps ] ♪ you requested backup? yes. yes i did. what's in your wallet? . 30 past the hour. time to take a look at the morning papers. "the washington post." a team of researchers were able to successfully produce embryonic stem cells from a

cloned human embryo. stem cells are known for the potential to fight disease. the scientists stated that they have no plans to implant the human embryos but the achievement is seen as the next step on the way to human reproductive cloning. >> "cleveland plain dealer" the attorneys for ariel castro the man accused of keeping three men in captivity for nearly a decade say he will plead not guilty. the defense claims that he has been portrayed as a monster in the media and believe his innocence will be proven in court. he is charged with kidnapping and rape. >> wow. >> the "new york times", the nation's biggest banks will score a major victory today with trillions of dollars on the line as federal regulators walk back their initial proposal to weaken the dominance of banks in the derivative market. big banks' control of derivatives is often seen as one of the largest contributing factors to the financial crisis and yet just five banks still control more than 90% of the market. >> also in the "new york times" this morning former new york

congressman anthony weiner reportedly preparing to roll out a bid for mayor of new york city as early as next week. according to "the times" he is finding it a little difficult to sign prominent operatives. his former consulting firm has declined to work with him in a mayoral race as well as several former congressional aides. >> think he'll be able to do it? >> run or win? >> run. >> yeah. >> he can definitely run. i still think he needs more time. he needs another cycle. >> kind of depends on how he rolls it out. >> the other problem is in this viral world who knows what still hasn't come out and that's -- that would be -- if i was running, i like anthony and i thought he was a very good congressman. >> smart guy. >> good guy. i just would like another cycle if i was him. >> what i think the key is with him, it's his wife. >> she is great. >> that's exactly what everybody says the minute you say her name. >> yeah. >> that this woman is literally

across the board one of the most well respected and kind individuals. >> and competent. >> that you will ever meet in a lifetime. if anyone can help him, if anyone can make him legitimate and bring what intelligence he has back to the table, which he has a lot, it would be her. from all accounts i've heard this woman is amazing. >> yeah. >> and accomplished and driven and everything. she is amazing. and she is still with him. so there is a reason she is still with him. >> my only point is timing. but he is a very competent guy and america has a way of forgiving. look what happened in south carolina. >> let me tell you the american people have forgiven a lot worse. don't even start me. there is a part of me that just -- well, let's move on to politico. >> the executive editor is mr. jim vandehye.

good morning. the ap leak case, benghazi, the irs investigation as well. you say health care actually could still be more damaging for the president. what do you mean by that? >> well, you think about 2010, the last election where republicans had success, it was because of health care and it was because independents in particular felt the government was doing too much, was being too intrusive. what brings all of these scandals together is this feeling of incompetence in the federal government in the ability to do complicated things. republicans will hold a repeal vote for the obama care plan today. there is going to continue to be all these implementation markers throughout the next year and there's been problems in implementing the law. so if republicans can season this and say, listen, health care implementation has been a debacle because the federal government is too big because that is the theology of obama, and democrats, that could hurt democrats in 2014. i think that's where republicans are going to try to keep the focus. in doing that, you guys have been talking on the show, they

have to resist this urge to say nutty things. in the past when republicans get into this situation, everyone wants to out do themselves or out do their fellow republicans and they say nuttier and nuttier things and it turns what could be a political winner into a political loser because people start to feel sorry for the president or the democrats are going after him. >> and prominent conservatives, jim, have come out and said things like that. charles krauthammer said let's drop the watergate nixon impeachment jail, drop that talk for now until we have more details. if that becomes appropriate later then you can use those terms but as donnie has been pointing out it sort of delegitimizes you when you reach that far when we've only just begun. >> especially when you have if you think of all three scandals at this point, benghazi, the ap, and what is happening with the irs, there is no evidence yet that touches the president and his inner circle. there is no doubt that especially the irs and the ap case it's completely egregious and almost everybody would agree with that but it doesn't touch

the president and the white house yet. so if you are sitting at home and watching this, all unfold, and people are saying, well this is worse than watergate, he's corrupt. there becomes a disconnect. that's what privately republicans are cautioning their members. back off. put a sock in it. calm down. let's do the hearings and see where it leads and see who knew what was happening at the irs, see what was happening at justice and not get ahead of the story. there is always a temptation to get ahead of the story. >> michael crowley in the storm of this last week or so as the three of these controversies have bubbled to the surface a lot of people are saying it hamstrings the president, puts in jeopardy his entire second-term agenda. is that an over statement at this point? >> i think so. it's interesting you just used the word controversies. i was going to jump in. referring to three scandals isn't the right way to talk about it. for instance, what happened with the associated press is not a scandal at all. journalists may find the law scandalous but the justice department followed the law

albeit through an aggressive interpretation. it's a policy dispute. it is not a scandal. the president had nothing to do with that. so i tend to think that the more people kind of digest this information, break it down, particularly now with benghazi, i think the e-mails are furthering the case that there is just not that much there, i think this is going to dissipate. i think the irs thing is going to hang around for a while. there are going to be hearings. more heads could roll. you know, at the end of the day though what this does is just chews up media oxygen and prevents the president from driving his message. the last thing i'll say is it could have a counterintuitive up side. immigration reform. what is right wing talk radio talking about right now? it's the, quote-unquote, scandals, the failure of the obama presidency. they're not driving the antiimmigration reform message that a lot of conservative antireform activists want out there. so there could be sort of unintended consequences to this from the right. >> michael crowley, great to have you with us this morning.

jim, thank you, too. still ahead on "morning joe" the chairman of the house judiciary committee congressman bob goodlatte joins us to discuss new developments surrounding the irs controversy. also our friend dan rather will be here in the studio. first, we all remember the video last month that cost mike rutgers and the school athletic director their jobs. now the school has named a new a.d., what officials call an historic day.

are you still sleeping? just wanted to check and make sure that we were on schedule.

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all right. time for sports. we start with the nba playoffs. the thunder. the oklahoma city thund wer all that talent on the brink of elimination against the memphis grizzlies. this is game five in oklahoma city. comes down to the final seconds. grizz up two. durant with a chance to tie it up. he misses the jumper. memphis hangs on to beat the top seeded thunder. they were in the finals last year were oklahoma city. now they're going home. memphis in its first western conference finals in franchise history. >> a good young team. heat and bulls. dwayne wade questionable before last night's game because of the ailing knee but he played. 18 points. lebron added 23. the heat erasing 11-point second-half deficit to knock out the chicago bulls in game five.

the heat again in the eastern conference finals. they await the winner of the pacers and knicks. the pacers could close that thing up at the garden tonight. >> so it could be the pacers versus memphis? >> potentially, yes. >> that's what you're hoping for. turning to college basketball, rutgers university has announced julie herman as its new athletic director. herman replaces the former a.d. who resigned after a video came out of the school's former men's basketball coach mike rice. >> ow. >> caught on camera hurling basketballs at players and using in a couple cases gay slurs during practice. hermann would be rutgers' first female a.d. she comes from louisville where she served as their athletic director's top deputy. she's got more than 30 years in college athletics but no prior experience as the head of a school's athletic program. >> mike, are there a lot of top program -- >> five. she becomes the fifth in d-1 schools.

>> good move. move>> g up next, author, columnist, kevin williamson who asks if smart phones keep getting cheaper and faster why are government programs growing more expensive and less effective? a good question. we'll discuss his book "the end is near and it's going to be awesome." that is the name of the book. next on "morning joe."

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>> it was a little vigilante justice. it was a badly behaved audience with a woman on the phone next to me all the way through. it was close seating and she was kind of in my lap. i asked her to stop and she said if you don't like it don't look. i asked her again when they made the announcement at the beginning to not use your phone if there had been a special exception made and she told me to mind my business so i did. >> twice you talked to her. that seems like a logical approach to ask her to stop. >> so i took the phone out of her hand and threw it out the door. >> then what happened? >> i was thrown out of the theater. >> did you get up from your seat, go to the door, open the door? >> i just tossed it. >> threw it in the aisle. >> kind of across the room down some stairs. >> big theater, small theater? >> small theater but we were all the way in the back so i don't think i was really disturbing anyone. >> who is sore? did she complain? >> she went to go look for her phone. she ended up talking to the manager at some point. >> oh, my. >> first of all that is so joe by the way except he would have made more of a flamboyant, he

would have picked it up and i think like thrown it against the wall and watched it smash into a thousand million pieces. >> and maybe make a speech afterwards. >> perhaps about the rudeness of using cell phones in theaters. >> yeah. >> when you're sitting next to someone and even if you're texting there is this bright light from the phone. you can't do that. >> bad form. >> bad form. we're on your side with that one. >> i'll let you know if i go to jail over it. >> please do. we'll follow the story. tell us why the end is near and it's going to be awesome. >> if you look at government finances, state, federal, local all put together we are on a path everyone agrees is clearly nonsustainable. democrats know, republicans know, the cbo knows. we are looking at a situation which has to radically change in the fairly new future, our outlays, how we structure things like social security and medicare and also city and state finances. the question for us who are libertarians, free market people, is what do we do next? the book is about how to be ready with some answers for how to deal with things like education, health care, things like that.

>> let's go through some answers. there are no easy answers are there? >> right. there is no single answer. we have this thing we do where washington has a debate on something every five years and try to pass one piece of legislation to fix everything. we're going to fix health care with one big stupid bill that no one ever read that makes the system worse. about to do the same thing with immigration. we do it with schools every now and then. no child left behind, terrible piece of legislation. we need a system in which you have a distributed approach where people are allowed to develop their own solutions to their own problems. it is not just the sort of free markets versus government thing but voluntary activity versus this sort of top down model. that is really what the -- >> how does that end gridlock and stop what's happening in washington? >> nothing ends gridlock. what ends gridlock is the government eventually runs out of money. they'll keep spending like they are and borrowing as they are until the point the credit markets say no more. we have a clois to have a quick, fast, ugly crisis or start making reforms now to make the transition better.

>> you've kind of answered my question. i'll ask it another way. at what point is our hand forced? whenever we talk about the spending problem we all know it is a question of math. >> right. >> but democrats in particular will come out and say hands off social security. hands off medicare. you can't touch it. we're going to stand firm for our seniors. at some point that argument is unsustainable itself because there is no money for the program. when does that day come? >> well, if our interest rates on treasuries went up to their historical average say six months from now, 6, 6 1/2% that would put us holding the budget roughly the size of the pentagon around close to a trillion dollars a year just in interest payments. if we go back to our average debts and costs that will force changes right there. if we go up to the higher end and everyone remembers the '80s when rates got up to 19%, 20% on some of this stuff that would take up the entire federal budget for debt finance. you can't default. congress will not default. >> donnie? >> why was no child left behind a bad piece of legislation?

>> because it centralizes things in washington. it poses sort of a single standard, single model of education. a country with 900 kinds of shampoo, we don't really need one model of k-12 education. the model we have is out dated. it dates back to the 19th century and it's just not a modern model. >> i love the purpose of the book which you say is an attempt to answer a question. why is it the telephone in my pocket gets better and cheaper every year but many of our critical institutions grow more expensive and less effective? that is an interesting parallel to make. is there a key, fundamental answer to put out that is realistic given the fact that we have a group of people in washington who don't seem to be able to work together effectively. >> the long-term picture is they don't matter as much as they think they do. they can talk about the debt ceiling all day but there will be a real debt ceiling they hit some day. they can try to keep alternatives from emerging but in the long term they can't. like gun control we talk about

something the government should do but then 3 d printers come along and it is no longer it is something the government can do. you have a situation you can't necessarily control from washington. >> "the end is near and it's going to be awesome." kevin williamson, thank you. great story from the theater last night. we're on your side. they better not press charges. that would be very embarrassing for that lady who was on her phone. on the show tomorrow bob woodward weighs in on the government seizure of the ap phone records. also the man behind hbo's new movie "liberace." >> he is my hero. >> jerry weintraub. joe does the best imitation. >> i am so excited. >> are you coming back? are you booking yourself? >> i have been looked. >> or are you even booked for today? >> yes i was. >> sure. "morning joe" is back in a moment. humans. even whe c and dot our i's,

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up next dr. jeffrey sachs and catty kay join us also msnbc political analyst howard fineman and former governor howard dean. right back with more "morning joe." i'm so glad you called. thank you.

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welcome back to "morning joe." live look at washington, d.c. and this beautiful thursday morning. donnie deutsch is still with us. you're going to have to wait another hour. you going to wait that long? >> i'm not leaving. for martha i'm not going anywhere. >> oh, my god. >> i thought it was for us. but i guess not. >> no. right here, martha and i are -- >> donnie. that is not -- she doesn't want to date you. >> we don't know that. >> to be determined. >> joining the set the director of the earth institute, dr. jeffrey sachs. >> good morning.

>> and washington anchor for bbc world news america catty kay here in new york looking fantastic and in washington editorial director of the huffington post media group and msnbc political analyst howard fineman and another howard former governor of vermont and former chairman of the democratic national committee, howard dean. good to have you all onboard this morning. we're going to go through the scandals. i want to get to the college story. i want to put a question out to howard dean who has been at the center of the storm at times and also helped analyze it. i'm just wondering, howard, if a couple months from now we'll be looking back and making fun of ourms for going deep into the weeds on interagency battles and that really people right now are thinking about other things, getting their kids out of school, moving on to the summer. there is no election here as a backdrop. are we sort of -- i don't know -- kind of drilling down on this to the point where people will tune out?

or is there something here that has legs that will last for months to come? and actually, change the way history looks at this presidency? >> neither of the above. i think the benghazi stuff is going to continue to be an incredible embarrassment for the republicans because it's all manufactured. and this -- these two other scandals have sort of saved them from themselves a little bit. but of course they have yet to jump in the fire on these. so here's my analysis. benghazi was always a fraud and it is going to go away and it never was anything except the right wing conspiracy type stuff. but the tax scandal is interesting because it has been done from the top, from the white house in the past with president nixon being the most famous of those. >> right. >> it does appear they may be getting ahead of that one. they fired the acting commissioner and they have an acting commissioner because the senate has not been helpful in confirming any nominees although

this -- he doesn't have a nominee for this one yet. and it looks like they may get isolated. it looks like this is isolated. looks like it is isolated to a small group of employees some of whom i dare say are going to continue to be fired. >> yeah. >> the one that is the most problematic i think although it's the one that republicans can least exploit is the investigation of the reporters and the wiretapping of the reporters. that really is serious ground. the problem that the republicans have exploiting it politically is that they are of course cheerleaders for this kind of stuff and bush was doing it and they thought that was great. so it is very good, going to be very hard although there is -- they're so shameless they'll try it anyway and try to get around it and pretend they're on the other side. i think the president has been smart to get quickly in favor of schumer's bill to protect reporters, but that one is a serious violation of the first amendment and it needs to be dealt with. >> having said that, the

question is, years from now, what will it all be looked back as? i will say the implications i see land squarely on the irs story. and i still don't see the right person being fired here. i see someone symbolically being fired. >> right. >> which is great. the president getting out in front of this and taking the person at the top who bears the ultimate responsibility where the buck stops with the irs has got to go. i understand. where are the other people? where are the people who are involved? they're going to go, too. i want to see that happen quickly. there are some that were really absolutely brazen in their behavior and the targeting of conservative groups, that is handing howard fineman red meat to rabid republicans who want to bring down this president. why don't you just hand them literally on a platter a piece of red meat? it's ridiculous. i would get rid of anybody who had anything to do with that scandal in the irs. that, to me, seems like it has legs and could be ugly and could have ramifications in mid-term

elections. >> well, mika, i agree with you. and even though the administration might want to cite civil service rules as it relates to some of those people, i mean, last night they fired the one guy they could fire, steve miller, who is a political appointee, so they could just summarily fire him. >> right. >> there are rules down there in the thick of the bureaucracy but if i were the president i would try to ignore them and move quickly, very quickly to that source. to answer your earlier question about whether we're going to look back on this as a fool's errand or something that changes the nature of the historical view and accomplishments of the obama administration, i think, unfortunately, for the obama people we're now in the situation where the question is what did they know and when did they know it? the famous old question from ages ago. >> but see i just got bored. i just got bored. i'm just telling you. >> okay. but if it's true. >> yeah. >> as it said, that both the irs story and actions and the ap

story and actions were down there in the bureaucracy and had absolutely nothing to do with and were not known by or managed by or shaped by the white house staff and the president, if that in fact is true, then this is going in history to seem like a wasted summer and maybe a wasted year. >> okay. okay. all right. i'll let katty jump in on this. the reason i said i got bored is because going deep into the weeds as this is defined, this needs to be cut out like a tumor what has happened at the irs because this presidency if it's been about anything is about president obama making moral decisions and taking his time to do the right thing. you may not agree with what he is doing but he is seen as someone who is above all this vitriol and this ridiculous media talk about ideology that goes beyond the pale. this is about rising above vitriol, hatred, extremism but

how can you do that if you have people in the irs targeting conservative groups? it has literally brought us down into the trenches. >> if this is going to affect his presidency i think that is exactly how. it drags the president and the white house. >> exactly. >> more into partisanship and, unfortunately, even further into a position where the country becomes ungovernable. i mean, this could change the second term of this presidency because you could have people out there in the country who are saying, i knew i never trusted government anyway. i particularly never trusted this white house. they're going to be saying this to their congress people, to their senators. they're going to come back to washington and say we're not going to deal with this presidency. we're not going to do anything on immigration reform or a grand bargain. >> guys, i'm seeing something just so different and i want to bring you in. i'd love to hear what howard says. unless this goes back to the president and it will not. >> no. >> but the american people believe, whether republicans or democrats, that the bureaucratic

octupus this of government doesn't work. come 2014, if unemployment is still going down and if republicans still react the way they do, you saw it earlier when we showed boehner, we showed mcconnell, we showed rubio, where they show their fangs and they over reach, you push it back the other way. this will be a nonevent because it is going to be a few rogue people and the american people are smart enough to distinguish between a president run amok and a few bad apples that we see every day. >> difference of opinion. it's okay. well, i would come back to what katty said but with one amendment. she said the country becoming ungovernable. the real theme of our time of which these are parts is this government has already stopped functioning. it stopped functioning in every area, in budgets, in the ability to agree on any programs, the ability to pass any legislation, and this is part of the

narrative. the government is tied up in knots and i'm sure the republicans are delighted to have more things to talk about to tie it up in knots. the second obama term most likely will be remembered as a period in which nothing gets done. even legislation that 90% of the public supports and this will be another occasion to talk more. >> right. >> it's discussed in what the irs did. the irs by the way does a lot of things that are disgusting outside of this. >> yeah. >> it's important to say. there's a lot of discretion in that agency, and a lot of discretion goes to giving massive tax loopholes and other things so there needs to be government reform. this is just an occasion to talk and talk and talk and make sure that nothing happens in washington. >> okay. donnie, i hope you're right. see, what i saw when that story broke was, and howard dean, i'll bring you back in right now, is

a situation where i think the president should be absolutely infuriated because stupid, bonehead bureaucrats have done more to help the extreme conservative wing than the government ever could. >> absolutely. >> they've just fed into exactly what i think this white house has been trying to rise above and build against. howard dean? >> i think he has. he has said the things he has to say. i'm outraged. this is unacceptable. he's fired the one person he could fire. other people are going to be fired as a result of this. the inspector general report was really, really interesting. first of all, for those who don't know, the inspector general's report essentially is an independent office that can say anything they want. and they don't -- they're not subject to influence from the white house. so what the inspector general said was, this was a small group of people in cincinnati which is the headquarters for the irs group that does all these charitable groups, the 501c-4s. there was a small group of employees who not only did this but contradicted the direct

orders of the superiors not to do it. now, it is hard to fire federal employees. i think they're going to get fired. it's going to take a long time. so the president's done what he can. unless somebody can produce a smoking gun and the republicans wilhelm and haw and huff and puff i don't think they can produce that smoking gun. and i think it'll be okay. where i agree with howard fineman is that of all the three of them, the potential for damage is the irs and the political sense, because nobody likes the irs. the only group -- >> seems like they fired the wrong person. the only group that has a worst rating than theies is the republicans in congress and they ought to think about that. >> i want to go to howard fineman. i think a lot of people look at the irs as the evil irs, not republican or democratic. howard fineman, agree or disagree that unless this goes to the president, this will be not only a nonevent because people we know vote with their pocketbooks and they vote in a much more discriminatory way, but will actually goad the republicans to show their worst

side to over reach and show their out of touch tone deafness with the american public? >> let's see, i'm limited to yes or no? yes, i agree with you in that the risk -- at the risk of boring mika again. >> i'm sorry. >> let me say that, yes. unless it's tied to the president it goes away. but the problem that mika raises about the paralysis of government is very real. the republicans have not wanted to cooperate with the president on anything. their basic strategy from the beginning has been to slow walk or stall everything. >> right. >> now they have the perfect ideological narrative that feeds right into their antigovernment sentiments. >> yes. >> their fear about obama as some kind of, you know, all controlling, all seeing force. this will give them the excuse to do nothing for the rest of the term if -- and now they're going to play it out forever.

a guy like mitch mcconnell who is worried about the tea party, worried about challenges from the tea party in kentucky and in the country, he is going to play to the tea party with these scandals from now till the cows come home. >> i loved what the president said. i thought he was great. i thought this whole theater part of it which he hates, he did very well. but i'm sorry. more heads need to roll. >> they will. >> just this ridiculous -- now there were people in there who were lying and knew what was happening and didn't do anything about it and perhaps let it go. do we not know that at this point? we do. >> yeah. >> and then to your point and to your point, dr. sachs, this in "the washington post." the dysfunctional state, the crippling problem in washington these days isn't any organized conspiracy against conservatives, journalists, or anyone else. rather, it's a federal establishment that's increasingly paralyzed because of poor management and political second-guessing. what should frighten the public is not the federal government's monstrous power but its impotence. >> exactly. >> the principal activity of the federal government these days is

investigating itself. so get this over with. get this irs scandal behind us. get rid of the people who were involved. get them out. and move on. >> and do it in such a way that it makes it possible to pass some sort of legislation. i mean, let's hope this doesn't derail immigration reform. because it has the prospect of doing that, to get anything, to get growth, get the kind of investment we need in the country. the two sides at some point have decided they have to work together and this just gives the republicans i think an excuse not to. >> we need to focus on things like education and jobs in this country in a big way. speaking of it, a new estimate shows the department of education is forecast to turn in almost $51 billion profit, student college loans this year by comparison that makes the department more profitable than exxon, apple, or chevron. according to the huffington post that is just shy of jp morgan chase, bank of america, citigroup and wells fargo's profits combined. senate banking committee democrats like elizabeth warren have criticized the margin

saying in part the fact that the government is now expected to profit $51 billion on student loans this year, more than the annual profit of any fortune 500 company and about five times the profit of google is just plain wrong. i'd like to hear -- okay. go ahead. chances are it is. >> well, yeah. let me just say we don't -- i'd like to know more about that because we had until the loans got put back in the federal government an organization in vermont that made a lot of money off student loans and got turned around right back in so that more students could get loans. so we need to know what this money is being spent for. if that is what it is being spent for it's not so bad but i hardly think arne duncan is flying around in a jet like the president of exxon mobil. >> no. >> there is a bill that would create a different system whereby if students paid off the loans over the first ten years in a diligent way all the rest of it would be forgiven. we're sending a whole generation out there heavily in debt.

>> absolutely. >> and unable to start their lives while we're using their lives to help narrow the federal deficit and it is going to be a big issue for this generation coming out now. >> i agree. we'll talk more about that. we've got breaking news to report. a nato military source tells nbc news that six americans were killed this morning in a suicide attack in the afghan capital. the victims include two u.s. soldiers and four contracted civilians. a spokesman for the police in kabul say 35 others were injured. we'll be following that breaking news just coming in to us at this hour. howard fineman, thank you very much. >> thank you, mika. >> dr. dean, katty kay, stay with us if you can. still ahead angelina jolie takes a private struggle public. how does her personal health decision affect the public's view of cancer prevention? that's the cover story in the new issue of "-time" magazine. up next the white house releases a stack of e-mails on benghazi.

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change has come to america. >> the way to make government responsible is to hold it accountable. for a long time now there's been too much secrecy in the senate. i will also hold myself as president to a new standard of openness. >> the justice department seized phone records of associated press reporters. the irs targeting the president's political opponents for special scrutiny. >> the administration downplayed terrorist involvement in september's deadly attack on the u.s. consulate in libya. >> the white house has had a very tough last several days. >> secretly obtained phone records. on the ap, the irs, and benghazi, a tough, tough week. >> my mind goes back to the issue when the president took office of, you know, this is going to be the most transparent

administration that we've ever seen. >> all right. that's an rnc ad posted yesterday. gives you a sense of how they're translating some of these stories. joining us now, nbc news chief white house correspondent and political director and host of the daily rundown chuck todd. >> yes, ma'am. which has the most legs? >> irs. >> also i want to do the e-mails. >> i think it's the irs. the question is what is the public most likely to consume and grasp on to first? it's the irs. >> okay. what do you make given that of the president's performance if i may yesterday when he came out and spoke to the cameras, talked about getting rid of the acting commissioner? >> well, i think that was something that was necessary. there were a lot of people that said this is something he should have done three or four days earlier. >> right. >> and, you know, it's funny. there is a pattern with the obama white house which is they blow us off when we all criticize them of how they handled something, whether they do something. and they claim that they don't listen to all the noise in washington. then what doate to the

ball game but then they react and claim this was always the way we were going to handle this all along. but i think that they, you know, the president at least had a list of issues that he was going to do with the irs. how to tackle this. i think he's got to stay on it. >> can i say -- >> here is the issue. >> yeah. >> if this becomes a bigger problem then he's going to have a harder time getting health care implemented, a harder time getting immigration reform. it gets at root of the rest of his -- >> isn't it going to become a bigger problem until a lot more people are fired? >> absolutely. i think that is why he needs to find, and i know the white house is looking for some visible person that will give off the impression they will clean house. maybe it's a former republican office holder. maybe it's a tough cop top cop kind of guy. but somebody that gets in there who by the way has never made a mistake on their tax returns right? >> right. >> oh, good lord. this will be about 20 years.

okay. >> but finding somebody that will give off, i mean, you know, is it like a tom ridge, jack danforth type of guy? >> when was the last time the irs was cleaned up? i have to look into that. there are people under the chain of command, the man by the way who had really nothing to do with this was removed yesterday as far as i -- >> he at least knew some of this stuff was going on. he was in charge. you can't just say these are rogue people in cincinnati. >> what about like lois lerner? >> i have a feeling her days are numbered too but one would assume every day there is a little more they would do to clean house. >> is that the right strategy? wouldn't you want to come in there and say, boom, boom -- >> it's been wrong from the beginning. the right strategy would have been the president getting angry and upset about this last friday and understanding -- i think the white house didn't understand at first this was getting at the root of the president's identity. >> right. >> which is, he wants to make

government efficient. he wants to make government work. he wants to bring credibility back into government. listen to his commencement speech at ohio state two weeks ago. it was about this issue of trying to get rid of cynicism in government. and this is the most cynical way that government can get used, the idea of politicizing the irs. so i think that they've under reacted to this the whole time. >> chuck, if he had come out and said i'm getting rifd the acting commissioner and x, y, z, eight other people. >> yes. >> who were also involved in this in cincinnati, wouldn't that have been much more of a clean sweep? >> i don't disagree. >> you tackle this problem. we've taken it seriously and anyone responsible goes. >> someone has to run the agency between now and then. >> there is going to be no way to just make it gone because there are going to be congressional hearings and there are going to be hearings dragged out and subpoenas and senior officials called. >> there should be. >> but it doesn't matter how many people are fired right now.

this will drag and it fits an agenda that republican agenda anyway. >> right. >> and it was pretty disgusting set of events as well. so this is going to drag on. there's going to be no way to avoid it. what i wonder is how it is going to be played as part of the, what was supposed to be the tax reform period coming up. >> oh, i think it totally ends any idea of tax reform. you know. >> you don't think it can be used to push for more tax cuts? >> that's the good angel on the shoulder, right? i just think -- i am beaten down by the devil of washington all the time. so i have to say that the cynic in me -- i think that's wonderful. it should be the reaction. i also thought the bp oil spill was going to motivate all of washington to actually come up with a rational energy policy and what happened? oh, right. that never happened. you would assume that a crisis moment could actually bring about good, you know, some good

fix that needs to be done. >> a learning moment. >> it doesn't happen anymore. >> okay. well, we have howard dean still, right? oh, here you are. let's turn his mike up. that'll help, too. howard, final thoughts from howard dean before you go. >> my final thoughts are that it's not as drastic as chuck says. >> what? >> there will be hearings and there will be hearings. there will be hearings on all kinds of things. there are hearings now in benghazi and they have no traction. as i said before the irs is a risk as long as it doesn't get to the white house i think howard fineman was right. it's not going to be a problem. they can have as many hearings as they want. the credibility of congress is close to zero. so i think most people view this as hot air. >> i know. >> i agree their ears pick up when the irs comes along and obama has to handle that properly and stay on top of it. i agree more heads need to roll. i think the real sleeper here is the ap story. and that, we need some explanations about that. because that -- something was done there that was clearly a violation of the first amendment. >> okay.

i think the ap story is extremely important but i got to -- >> i do, too. i don't think the public cares about us and the media. >> no, but, chuck, you know, or anyone at the table here to what howard said, i'm sorry. when we have hearings, and we hear more about why certain groups were targeted and why certain groups weren't, i'm sorry. i don't think that's going to go well and be forgotten especially by those who were targeted. >> there's always a risk of going too -- doing -- where congress looks like they're so focused on a hearing they're not doing any other part of the agenda and things like that and that could hurt them. that's what happened to republicans in '98 during the mid terms during clinton. but i think that this idea that we don't know why these agents targeted them and i think we'll hear more on that and that's where this could become problematic. >> this could get ugly. >> the poor democrats have to be as outraged as the republicans to depoliticize this. right now the republican party,

they could not ask for something to unite their base. the party was about to splinter into two because of immigration. splinter into two because of working with the president on taxes and the budget. and now the irs scandal, this is the -- this is completely uniting the party. >> like fingernails on a chalkboard but listening to some of the republicans who have spoken out about this they have something to work with here as opposed to other times. and so, i mean, i'm mentioning marco rubio, who got up and was just, you know, extremely, how do i put it, was almost like a minister up there talking about what has happened. and you know what? unfortunately the information and the guts of the story are there and it's an opportunity. it's red meat. >> don't forget he is also testing the base for democrats. >> exactly. >> he needs this other story. >> oh, no. he's loving it. chuck todd, thank you. we'll see you coming up on "the daily rundown." >> i got marco rubio coming on the show. >> do you. msnbc.com for an extended

round table conversation on the hot political topics of the day including olympia snowe on how to end this in congress. we have an update on the tornadoes from bill karins when "morning joe" comes back. ♪ [ agent smith ] i've found software that intrigues me. it appears it's an agent of good. ♪ [ agent smith ] ge software connects patients to nurses to the right machines while dramatically reducing waiting time. [ telephone ringing ] now a waiting room is just a room. [ static warbles ]

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overnight a devastating tornado struck in texas about 40 miles to the southwest of ft. worth, texas, in granbury. we're now getting our first pictures in at daylight. the helicopter is up over the scene and we're continuing to watch these amazing pictures coming through. this is the rancho brazos estates. obviously a very affluent suburb there of the dallas/ft. worth metroplex. and these tornadoes, this house obviously did some minor damage there to the roof but there are other homes we've been looking at in this vicinity that literally the top half of the homes just removed. typically with what we'd call the strongest tornadoes, an ef-5 tornado, these houses would be stripped all the way down to the foundations and you'd just see barren earth in the cement. these are well built, constructed homes. the top half of them off. i have to estimate this was at least an ef-3 on the enhanced

fujita scale, probably winds 135 to 165 miles per hour. the storm struck this area 8:00 p.m. last night local time. some of these pictures are coming from the town right next to granbury. the cleburne area. that is also where the storm struck and also whereabout half the town does not have power. the fatalities we've been hearing about have been coming from the granbury area of texas. let me show you what it looked like last night. this was the storm as it treks through the region starting at about 8:00. now as far as the tornado warnings, a lot of people want to know how much warning time did they have? the town does have tornado sirens and they're saying people, the residents did hear the tornado sirens about ten to 15 mints before the tornado actually hit so they did have some proper time to go and get safety. as far as the storm, itself, it started over granbury. literally formed almost right over the top of the town and then from there it grew this monster tornado. by the time it headed down here toward cleburne, it kind of did a path like this, it was reported at one mile wide as the

sun was setting and it was pretty dark. the flashes of lightning. you could see the tornado a mile wide. it wasn't a mile wide when it went through granbury but that is how big it grew. thankfully it went just north of rio vista and south of cleeb u.n. the pictures show the scene and explain why we've had so many fatalities and also so many injuries there from the granbury area. mika, back to you. >> thank you. up next "time" magazine's executive editor is here to reveal the new cover of "time." how angelina jolie is starting an important national conversation. we'll be right back with much more of "morning joe." all business purchases.

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joining us now with the fascinating new issue of "time" magazine not just talking about the cover which you will find fascinating, donnie, but some of

the stories inside are good ones. executive editor redeka jones, we'll start with the cover. the angelina effect. she has put herself in the middle of, you talk about a national conversation i think it's actually an international one. but it certainly is a brave, brave new fight that she has joined. >> it's national, international, and also very personal. >> yes. >> i think that is really where it will have emotional resonance. yes. we, as so many people, were absolutely struck by her op-ed in the "new york times" about having had a double mastectomy and what really struck us is that this is a healthy woman. she and her doctors anticipated that she would have an 87% risk of getting breast cancer because of genetic testing not because of screening or the other kinds of things that we're more used to. genetic testing is a science that is not quite in its infancy but its childhood and in a way she was lucky because she was able to act on it. >> right. >> there are a lot of illnesses and risk of illness that genetic

testing can pinpoint that we can't act on yet. you know, there is a way in which that research gets ahead of the treatment. >> give us a sense of why she made the decision because i know a few -- i have a few friends who have done this and it is because your chances are so high that you live with basically an ax about to fall at any moment. >> right. in her case, you know, we -- she was very clear about it in her piece and we talked to other doctors who said she made a smart choice. her risk was very high. a lot of people with breast cancer don't have this particular gene. they don't have this profile. but in her case she did make a smart decision and i think in terms of being an inspiration, the hope is not that this will inspire a lot of people to get over tested for things that they're not at risk for. she had a family risk and she knew that. >> right. >> but rather it will inspire people to act responsibly with the information they can get. >> i think even for women who have breast cancer and having double masectomies because of the cancer not just because of

the genetic mutation, her article was amazingly important. it came out on tuesday. a very good friend of mine went in and had a double mastectomy yesterday and she was saying i'm so pleased that article came out because i am so scared i'll lose all of my femininity. this is so much part of your identity of course for a woman her breasts are important. >> exactly. >> and having somebody say like angelina, i still feel like a beautiful woman, i think, was very important. >> and having her say it and not your doctor. >> right. >> she is an incredibly unique position to say that. i think you're right. >> an interesting point of view. the cover story also has a caution and i'll read part of it. this is by jeffrey klugger and alice park. jolie, by nearly universal agreement, made the right choice for her but a lot of experts worry that we may over-read the lessons. genetic screening is a young science and while we may have detected genes linked to a host of ills we often do a terrible job of calculating our resulting risks making irreversible

decisions based on dangers that don't exist. jolie's brave example can make us all smarter and help keep us healthier but only if we take the right lessons from it. >> that's what i was saying earlier. genetic testing can reveal these mutations a person can act on and can also reveal sort of what we think of as a false positive, you know, mutations that maybe exist but if we didn't know about them would never hurt us, you know, and people do over react sometimes. >> all right. >> nobody wants to live with what they think is -- >> i think it's a great cover story. there are some great pieces in here. the one that really lit up for me is also mentioned on the cover, the end of alimony. talk to me about that. a lot of people probably perking up saying what? the end of alimony? how does that happen? >> not quite over yet but this is a story out of florida and it is really fascinating and provoked a lot of conversation in our offices. there's legislation in florida and has been in several other states to, with reform groups trying to put forward an end to

alimony, which is to say, you know, when a marriage dissolves into divorce the settlement happens right away and there is no longer this, yes, that says it all. there is no longer this sort of unbreakable tie that happens between a man and wife and usually it's the man who is paying alimony. now, the reason this has come up is that it is actually a problem not just for men who are paying alimony and it is mostly men, but for second wives. we were just talking about what happens as say a man and wife get divorced, he marries again, say he lost his job or because of the recession everyone is a little pinched these days. suddenly the second wife is the person paying the alimony. and as you can imagine this is very galling for a lot of women. >> there is that dimension and there are other dimensions as well. i've met a number of people who i'm close with who have gone through a divorce and they are still paying ten, 20 years later to an ex-wife who won't get

remarried or something because then she would lose the alimony instead of getting a job or something else. >> as a man, i see both sides of this. it's interesting. there is the side that says, is alimony an enabler. >> right. >> to not -- >> or an advantage. >> to not step up but on the flip side though i believe if a woman or a man has dedicated their life to staying home and raising the family. >> it's their responsibility. >> you can't all after sudden expect those people to flip on a switch and be big-time earners. even if they go to work. >> right. >> if you've been out of the work force for 30 years -- >> where i think it changes is once kids are out of the house i don't think any spouse should ever have to have responsibility for the other spouse. that's what i believe. >> yet the first wives who are in that situation in the story will say well i've just, my opportunity cost has been 20 years of raising these kids. now they're gone. it doesn't make me more marketable. now i am a woman in my mid 50s. what you just said, it is very difficult for those women to find work. >> as women increasingly work,

as women start to earn more than their husbands which in many cases they're doing now, alimony is going to be seen as an anachronism. it is just not something we'll need anymore because we'll be financially much more independent. >> i don't think we can claim one thing and demand another in this day and age. having said that, it's much more complicated. that very, very basic statement i made. i think there is something changing here and that is why the article is so timely. the new cover of "time" is the angelina effect. >> good for her. >> thank you very much. coming up, from teen idol to rat pack leg legendary singer/song writer paul anka joins us to explain what is next for his storied career. we'll ask him when "morning joe" comes right back. ♪ so when you hear it thunder don't run under the tree ♪ ♪ there will be pennies from heaven for you ♪ i'i'm going toto dream about thatat tiramisu.u.

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♪ that was paul lanka who

wrote "my way" for sinatra back in the '60s and paul joins us right here right now on the set. so nice to meet you. >> good morning. thank you. >> he's out with a new book. "my way." what a book it is. i'm looking at some of the steamy highlights. we'll get there. >> do tell. >> i'm not going there. first, i am blushing actually. >> mike will read it to the audience. >> tell us first of all why you set out to write this. you have a storied career. so much to share i take it. >> it's been a lot of years. 55 years. i've been prodded to do one for many years. actually it came from -- i was doing the howard stern show and i was telling these stories and all listeners were calling saying why don't you write a book. i said let me think about it. i got a call from the editor at st. martin's and i realized i

better get to it because i'm now in my 70s and i may get too old to remember half of this stuff. i sat down and said give me time to do it. let me find out if i can approach it the way i want to. not just make it fluff. >> you did that. >> i felt the timing was right. >> how old were you when you wrote "diana." >> i was 14 years old. i left home 15 1/2. got to new york. record it in may, 1956. i borrowed money from my dad and i had school vacation and i lived down here at a bathtub and i made the rounds. >> my goodness. >> it was a huge hit. huge hit. >> i got real lucky at 16. it came out. took me around the world there for about two years. wrote a couple more. i said maybe this is for me. i had a great passion for

writing. i was a journalist in ottawa, canada, and realized writing and singing is what i wanted to do. >> how old were you when you intersect with frank sinatra? >> i met sinatra in the late '50s in los angeles. i was the youngest to work vegas. i met him in the late '50s and started working in 1960 and there i was at the sands with that group of guys that we all idolized and wanted to be like. back then pop music was in its infancy stage and it was just a small little group of people. there was no beatles yet or hard rock had hit. the rat pack was the thing. that's what i wanted to do. i wanted to be like them. they were the whole fashion spot, vegas was the place to be. i like that kind of music. and i ventured into that very quickly. >> that kind of music which great voices like yourself, the

great crooners, where you listen to it and it's pure, beautiful music. without sounding like a crusty old guy, we don't have that today. you have some. i wish there were more and i think there is a tremendous lust and desire for the pure beautiful voice music for lack of a better word that you and your contemporaries did versus what is pop today. >> you're correct. unfortunately you're fighting technology. times have changed and times do change. that was very much a part of the michael buble success. he's a fellow canadian. he's and wonderful artist. you go in a studio and you have a vision in your head and you have to get it while you're in there and you have to be able to sing. there were none of these machines that made you sound good. that doesn't prevail. it was a time of radio.

it wasn't a media driven time. these guys were natural and great and knew what they were doing and very professional. >> i would think a lot of material would come from having five daughters. five daughters? >> uh-huh. >> when are you going to get to the steamy stuff? >> do you guys want me to ask about sinatra, jfk and the hookers? do you want me to do that? i don't know if i want to hear that. >> let me just say one thing. it's nothing that you haven't heard before. let's not be naive about it. it's been out there. there are no big deep, dark secrets i'm sending out here. it's stuff that's been out there. it's public domain. this is not a book of as told to. it's as lived by. so what i saw out there and being with those guys i witnessed all of the carryings

on. sinatra was the greatest artist i had ever been around. we worked for people we didn't choose to work for. >> who do women go more crazy for. jfk or sinatra? >> sinatra. he had a pool of people that loved him but sinatra was the guy. he walked into a room and it was crazy. >> a hard way to live. >> sinatra over jfk. >> an easy way to live frankly. absolutely. if you are cut out for it. >> i think when people adore you to the point when they throw themselves at you, it's hard to be the recipient. >> welcome to my life. >> tell me about it. welcome to my world. >> okay. this is -- >> just be quiet right now. >> i'm just counting the

minutes. how many minutes until martha comes. >> the book is "my way." so nice to meet you. thank you so much. president obama is set to take questions from reporters at the white house today. can he move past the scandal at the irs? we'll discuss it next on "morning joe."

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[ telephone ringing ] now a waiting room is just a room. [ static warbles ] >> yesterday press secretary jay carney like an intrepid weather

channel anchor stood and let the wind and rain pummel him for our entertainment purposes. >> on the irs, does the president believe they are being truthful and does he think the leadership there needs to change? >> part of it is fact. it's not in the if area anymore. it's fact. >> you asserted something -- >> that's your opinion. >> it's twice as many prosecution as all previous administrations combined. that's not even close. >> why would you say that? is there a vat of boiling oil in the mote? is that why you say that? >> good morning. it's 8:00 on the east coast. 5:00 a.m. on the west coast. i will gently say you might want to consider thinking about waking up right now. like, right now. it's time to get up. take a live look at new york city. back with us on set, joe doesn't like it when i tell people to

wake up. he thinks i'm a scold. mike barnicle is here. before we get to the news, we'll start with a developing story overnight. at least six people were killed and 14 still missing after a giant set of twisters touched down in north texas. let's start with bill karins with the latest on that. >> we have had our first really nasty tornado of our spring season. this was a strong one. we didn't have a lot of them. only three reported. this one went through a populated area to the southwest of the dallas metroplex area and just southwest of ft. worth. these pictures are from this cleburne, texas. a fluent suburb of the dallas-ft. worth area. you can see the top of the houses were taken off. winds between 130 and about 165

miles per hour. this is not the granbury area that had six fatalities. clouds are still too low to the ground blocking the helicopter from giving us views of the scene. we had three reported around the dallas metroplex. for severe weather this morning. thunderstorms expected around areas of arkansas today but no big tornado threat like yesterday. how much lead time did folks have in granbury? 7:42 local time they went under a tornado warning. things started being sucked up into the air as the tornado formed right over the top of them. at 8:00 local time is when the tornado went through the granbury area and where we saw those pictures to the right of your screen is cleburne.

it grew in size to one-mile wide and that area just to the south here of just north of rio vista is the debly ba lris ball. that's where the shingles were thrown into the air. that's when we know a town has been significantly struck and hit. these are just the start of devastating pictures that will come out of north central texas from last night's deadly tornado. just an unbelievable scene there. we wish those people the best in their cleanup. mika, back to you. >> bill, thank you. we'll follow this story throughout the morning. let's start with politics. the head of the irs has been forced out as the fallout from the irs scandal spreads. acting commissioner steven miller had been aware of the agency's effort to put greater scrutiny on conservative groups as early as 2012. miller told staffers in an internal memo he'll depart in early june when his acting assignment ends.

in a news conference last night, president obama announced miller's resignation and described his own outrage over the whole issue. >> the misconduct that is uncovered is inexcusable. it's inexcusable and americans are right to be angry about it and i am angry about it. i will not tolerate this kind of behavior in any agency but especially in the irs given the power that it has and the reach that it has in all of our lives. and as i said earlier, it should not matter what political stripe you're from. the fact of the matter is the irs has to operate with absolute integrity. >> so i'm just reading. we've been covering the different players in this including the head of the irs's division on tax exempt organizations and was aware from nearly the beginning of all of this.

i mean, i'm assuming that's next. i'm not sure -- i'm not sure about this firing. i think it obviously makes sense because the guy is at the top, but i would expect more. am i alone here? >> hearings begin tomorrow in the house. >> i don't know if we need a hearing for that one. the initial republican response to the move was positive. congressman darrell issa calling it a good first step. there's a full schedule of hearings looming on capitol hill as the guys just mentioned judging by reaction of some republicans earlier in the day the focus on the scandal is not going away. >> these are the tactics of the third world. these are the tactics of places that don't have the freedoms and independence that we have here in this country. it is shocking to americans that this would come to light in the way that it has. >> there was an effort to bring the power of the federal government to bear on those the administration disagreed with. in the middle of a heated

national election. it actually could be criminal. >> my question isn't about who is going to resign. my question is who is going to jail over this scandal? >> all right. at a house judiciary hearing, attorney general eric holder said the justice department would look into whether any false statements made by the irs officials broke the law and whether the civil rights of conservative groups has been violated. i guess those are fair questions. >> i got to tell you though, to me this is the booby trap. i look at the three guys that stood up there. you're up there at the pulpit saying they're going to take your guns and money out of your pocket. the american people have a detector. what are you doing? i think it brings out -- every time that democrats stumble, it brings out the worst in the republicans. they end up shooting themselves in the foot. you just saw it right there. i'm an american. that's not talking to me. americans have a great detector

of people who are looking out for them versus out of touch politicians. >> i see this as red meat that's just been handed to them. >> on some issues you're talking about like guns, there is an imagined threat. a paranoia about it. this actually happened. they targeted conservative groups. two totally different things. >> i think the american people are sophisticated to understand that in bureaucracies this is not directed by the president. >> as far as you know yet. >> i would be surprised. i would stand corrected if it was. >> most people regard john boehner, mitch mcconnell and whoever else is on tv talking about this as talking wallpaper in the background. what they do care about, most people, is a feeling that government is incompetent. it's not up to the job. they're not getting the best bang for their tax dollar when you pay taxes. schools are lousy.

roads have potholes in them. bridges are crumbling. what does government do? that's the big vulnerability for anybody in power. you are incompetent. it's time to move on from this government. >> fair point. >> i want to just get peter alexander. is he still there and can we hear him? >> he's been run over by the lawn mower. >> we have benghazi e-mails to cover but just on the irs scandal as we make a. >> translator: transition here. is there a vulnerability put into place given that story? >> reporter: they recognize that they appeared slow and disengage on this issue but there was only so much that this white house could do. they had to wait for the inspector general's report to come out and just as we speak. >> i'm telling you. >> it's a conspiracy. >> reporter: you want the real political circus, it's right

here behind us. >> every time peter opens his mouth the lawn mower comes. >> reporter: it's a television filibuster happening as we speak right now. suffice to say they think that the document, ig report, shows the white house had no involvement in this and didn't go outside of the irs as is documented. republicans are going to want to pursue this farther. keeping with the conversation that you're having right now, this white house is already trying to turn the page. they sort of blasted us with the press conference or with remarks by the president late yesterday handing out these 100 pages of document late yesterday as well to try to put it out on a three front war at once. today the white house will focus on other things. they told me within the last hour later today that the president is going to be convening the joint chiefs here and the defense secretary on the issue of sexual misconduct in the military. that's a significant and sensitive issue the more we learn of more than one case in charge of trying to prevent that from taking place being accused

of the attacks themselves. he's hosting the prime minister of turkey today. that's another significant issue. the issue of syria. one they prefer to talk about these days and tomorrow the president goes off to baltimore like he did to austin last week. the desire there was to focus on manufacturing and infrastructure. things you say americans care about but things will be drown out by the conversation surrounding them. >> good choice of words. peter alexander being drown out by a lawn mower as we speak. stand by there. things got heated on capitol hill yesterday as attorney general eric holder faced questions from the house judiciary committee. the hearing's primary focus was the justice department's use of secret subpoenas to obtain phone records from the associated press reporters as part of a doj investigation. while discussing a separate matter, holder lashed out at congressman darrell issa. >> i'm sure there must have been

a good reason why only the two and from parts were -- >> you didn't want us to see the details. mr. attorney general, in knowing to and from -- >> i'm not going to stop talking now. you characterized something as something -- >> mr. chairman, would you inform the witness as to the rules of this committee. >> it's consistent with the way in which you conduct yourself as a member of congress. it's unacceptable and shameful. >> this could play into the point that you were making. i see you shaking your head. why? you think they are totally overreaching? >> i think the problem with the republican brand and the republican face is they are angry, no people. the american people don't get a sense that republicans want to move it forward. that is their agenda. they keep showing their faces as angry, stretching whatever it

takes away versus what's right for the american people. it's partisan on both sides. every time republicans give them a piece of red meat, they don't handle it in the appropriate way. they show their ugly fangs. this is the problem with this party. >> michael crowley, do you agree? >> i think that in particular on benghazi that is threatening to become a case study in overreach. the polls show the country is divide ed on this. republicans have a slight advantage with independents. people will wonder where we talk about this thing that happened in september. it will be interesting to see how republicans play it from here out particularly after e-mails didn't contain a smoking gun. i would say that you have to have sympathy for holder who seems to spend about a third of his time as attorney general sitting up in congress getting harassed and grilled by these guys. you remember that he came out of

the gate with that khalid shaikh mohammed to have in new york that turned into a fiasco and the white house didn't have his back and then his entire life was consumed by this fast and furious scandal that republicans were obsessed with. a good example of a republican obsession that fell flat on the rest of the country. they were calling for holder's resignation and constantly grilling him and now he's back again. here with holder specifically you reach a guy who is at the end of his rope with these guys. >> we mentioned benghazi e-mails. let's go there as we try to get all of the headlines in today. i would love to get the college loan story in as well. the white house is looking for put to rest the issue of how it handled the attack on the u.s. consulate in benghazi following months of criticism from the right. yesterday the obama administration released 100 pages of e-mails describing the interagency debate over how to describe last year's september 11th attack. the e-mails show that cia deputy director mike morale excluded

references to al qaeda groups and terrorism be removed from talking points and not the white house. that's more information shedding light on the benghazi situation and what was going on inside the white house really. >> i think republicans want all roads to lead back to the white house on all three of these stories and so far they don't. we're talking about the irs. you're right about that. hasn't been connected. the ap story not connected to the white house. if you read these e-mails, peter alexander, it doesn't look like in 100 pages of e-mails at least that the white house was tinkering in this. it looked like a cia over state department debate. >> reporter: the lawn mower moved to the third fairway so i can talk to you. i think what you see in hundred pages of e-mails and one page of notes is this jostling that took place between diplomatic officials at the state department and intelligence officials at the cia. obviously republicans are still going to pounce on specific details. lindsey graham last night saying

that you don't need to be sherlock holmes to see this was an effort to protect the president ahead of the 2012 election. i want to show you two e-mails if i can. this is a set of notes that a senior intelligence official tells us was changed and revised by deputy director of the cia mike morale where he crossed out information referring to al qaeda and past cia warnings in the region. this is part of the scrubbing down that republicans have been upset with. a senior intelligence official says the deputy cia director himself independently and pro-actively made those changes and it was without any pressing by the state department or by the white house. but if you see one of the final versions before the final versions of the talking points come out, there was one other e-mail a lot of people will be talking about today. this one was sent by david petraeus. i can put that up on the screen

to show you quickly where he says among other things i just as soon not use this referring to the fact that it doesn't actually reference any of the warnings that had taken place in that region at the time. he acknowledges these things these are so watered down. it doesn't appear the white house had interference in terms of the role. >> i want to pick up on mike's point. stop selling evil and sell confidence. these aren't evil people. they are incompetent. over their head. benghazi, ap, irs, wrap it up in a red bow and say they can't get up instead of painting the devil. the american people can accept that argument. >> benghazi is different. the idea that republicans are trying to claim that the benghazi e-mails and what happened in benghazi tragedy with four americans killed, if it had been exposed further during the course of the election that mitt romney could

have beaten barack obama on the terrorism issue is ludicrous. totally ludicrous. what this is if you read the e-mails and if you follow the story, the fact of the matter is that we had very poor practically none intelligence on the ground in benghazi. human intelligence sources. we had none. we did not know what was going on in benghazi for nearly two days. >> that's incompetence. >> it's an intelligence failure certainly. >> go ahead, michael. >> thank you. there was no great -- if this was a coverup, it was a huge failure. the facts about that attack came out. all americans when they voted on election day knew that four americans had been killed in benghazi. they knew there was a security failure and that libya was not a pretty situation. and they knew that the president had been a little bit slow in

accurately describing what happened. the president got the worst of both worlds. they were slow and clumsy on messaging and they paid for it. romney hit them for it. it was not a successful coverup. at the end of the day the question is what did the white house really get away with here? there might have been some effort to spin the talking points a little bit. i think what we saw yesterday that actually the story is the cia. it's not a story about hillary clinton but a story about hillary clinton and a guy nobody ever heard of. martha stewart is here to her views on living the long, good life. up next, bob goodlatte and dan rather is standing by. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. [ male announcer ] someone said that it couldn't be done.

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23 minutes after the hour. joining us is congressman bob goodlatte and dan rather. i saw you on "hardball." i thought, okay, we need dan in here and perspective. before we go to the congressman, which story has the left legs? >> the irs story by far has the most legs. i'm not sure that either of the other two will last all that long. both are fairly important but the internal revenue service story will last quite a long while depending on what the

president does and doesn't do. >> okay. so on that, let's go to representative bob goodlatte who had the attorney general in the hot seat yesterday. would you agree what dan said and what did you cover that would bear some concern? >> we didn't discover a lot with the ap story because the attorney general indicated and is the case that he recused himself because he's one of the individuals questioned regarding the leak. it was disappointing to us but it means the focus of the investigation will shift over to other people in the justice department. the issue is not that the administration shouldn't be looking for leaks related to their efforts to go after terrorists. the issue is whether this was handled properly in terms of both the overbreath of it and why and how it was turned over to the deputy attorney general to pursue it.

we're going to have to look in other directions. we'll continue to look at that and i think there are members on both sides of the aisle who are very concerned about how that handle. we have here obviously very important first amendment rights that need to be protected in the media and there is a process when you are subpoenaing documents from a media organization that apparently were not followed in this case and we need to find out why. >> congressman, do we know why the attorney general recused himself from that particular case? >> we don't know. we believe it is because he was questioned as part of the process and took himself out. we don't know that for certain and we don't know why he was questioned. obviously we have a ways to go in determining where this story will lead us but it is an important oversight responsibility of the congress to protect the first amendment and to make sure that any administration is following the rules when it comes to what

appears to be very overbroad requests of documentation affecting 20 reporters over a two-month period of time. that truly can be viewed as having having a suppressing effect on freedom of the press. >> amen to that. by having said that, i think the tax story has the most legs. this was a very important thing. i just think it's hard for the public to get a grasp of why this is so important and i would like to ask the congressman if we may, do we have any indication of why they chose to do this in secret? one of the most disturbing things about this, there is a process to go through. instead of going through that process, they did this in secret rather than say to the ap, listen, we have interest in this story and use it as a negotiation over how far to go. why didn't they do that or do we know? >> we don't know why that was done. again, the attorney general was not either able or not willing

either way because he had recused himself from the matter to get into the details and as i say, members on both sides of the aisle were frustrated by that as well as frustrated by the progress so far on the irs story although again with regard to the attorney general since they just announced a couple days before that they were going to conduct a full scale investigation into the manner in which the irs looked into the 501c4 status and applications of a wide array of organizations, not all conservative organizations but clearly with an overwhelming focus on conservative organizations. again, members on both sides of the aisle recognize the importance here of not allowing the taxing authority of the government to be asking questions like what books do members of your organization read? who are the members of your organization? these things do not pertain to whether or not they are

fulfilling the requirements of a 501c4 educational organization. tea parties even though they have the word party in their name are not political parties. they do not nominate candidates. if they seek the status, they are not allowed to endorse candidates or conduct political campaigns but they are certainly allowed to bring elected officials and candidates and others before their groups and ask them tough questions and so on. that's a legitimate part of the process and it can certainly be an educational and nonprofit focus. >> all right. congressman bob goodlatte we know you have to go. thank you for being on the show. dan, you have experience with stories like these. i wonder how in all your years this one compares. >> we're in the early stages so it's a little early to start making comparison. those who compare it to watergate, the republicans, are always eager to jump on almost anything and say it's like watergate. we're not anywhere in the same

arena as that. with watergate while using the internal revenue service to punish one's opponents came directly from the president himself, that's a fact. now, in this case we don't even know whether the president was aware that this was happening. but this is advantage republican. the republicans must be slapping high five behind closed doors because they have three things going for them. one, their number one agenda item is to stop president obama from accomplishing anything in his second term. this aids that. number two, they have their eye on the next congressional elections in 2014. many republicans in congress are getting estranged from the tea party and have solidarity with the tea party moving toward that election and by the way with the benghazi thing, they managed to damage hillary clinton's chances of not only getting the presidency in '16 but also getting the nomination. it's a trifecta for them. no wonder they are slapping high fives behind closed doors.

>> isn't this a danger for republicans as they get drawn back into the tea party fervor, we know that doesn't play in general elections. i keep coming back to, yes, there's a football here to be played with but it will be fumbled and it will backfire. >> i heard you say that earlier and i agree. the republicans can overplay this. let's keep in mind in the 1998 congressional election, bill clinton was being pillared every day talking about scandal. this was five-star scandal. and the republicans did not do that well in the 1998 off-year election. what people want government to do is be honest. the people want their schools to work. they want their government to deliver valuable services and they have a feeling it's not working. president obama must feel like he's tied down.

every time he turns around he can't move in any way. it raises the question can he get anything done in this second term as president with the republicans playing this obstructionist role. >> we'll be following. dan rather, thank you so much. we lost donnie. he just got up and left. >> you know where he went. >> catch dan rather special part 2 on immigration reform and political battle over the path to citizenship. that's on tuesday at 8:00 on access tv. look at what's coming up next. are you serious? >> she needed to be escorted. ms. stewart needed to be escorted. >> dan, you know martha. >> i do indeed. >> i'm sorry, martha. >> i was being a gentleman.

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creativity. ingenuity. leadership. these are skills we see in great actors and great teachers, which america will need more of because in the next decade, over a million teachers will retire. you have what it takes to be a teacher. the more you know. 35 past the hour. with us now is martha stewart on our show. yea! >> an all around babe. >> my gosh. she's so beautiful in so many ways. she's out now with her 79th book. seriously? really? you ought to try and do something once in a while,

martha. "living the good life, a practical guide to caring for yourself and others." >> living the good long life. that was a book from the 1960s about living a good, healthy life up in maine. i added long because we are faced with a huge, huge problem here in the united states. in addition to the irs and everything else. we are facing a silver tsunami where more than half of our p l population in the next year or two will be over the age of 65 and we don't have the care, we don't have the caregivers, we don't have insurance. we don't have doctors to deal with this ageing population. so it's better if we learn how to take care of ourselves as fast as possible. the minute you're born, you're getting old. >> right. i've been going through it. i'm going to start living by

this book. >> this is mike's book. this is his bible. >> it should be mike's bible. you're about 20 years too late for it, mike, but give it a try. >> it's never too late by the way. >> for some people it's too late. >> it is all about lifestyle and what living a long life and living a good long life is about and how you can promulgate better years ahead. >> it's about eating well. it's about having a curiosity. it's about exercising well. it's about wearing sunblock. sunblock. that's one of my ten rules for living a good, long life. you don't want to expose yourself to the bad rays of the sun. it's staying passionate about things. it's about maintaining friendships. it's about finding things to center your attention on and keep going. it's about not retiring.

>> the key word is passion. people need something in their lives to be passionate about. >> it's about getting a dog or a cat or a bird to help you maintain a healthy lifestyle. >> i love this. consider cosmetic enhancements. what are you talking about here? >> if it makes you feel better, that's not a bad thing. in addition to cosmetic enhancements, you have to do things from the inside out and that's where diet comes in and exercise comes in. it's where taking charge of your own self is very important. >> there's a great deal on hygiene. personal hygiene and the changing body. it's serious stuff. we don't have to get into it here. >> as much as brushing your teeth and washing your hair. things like that people forget sometimes as they get older to do. >> along these lines also with over age 65, how does ageing

sexuality play into this. you will not allow me to be a journalist. >> we talk about that in the book. >> you're such a child. >> it's an important part of ageing. people who are 70 now are more like 50 if they have taken care of themselves. the 50s are more like 30s. that's a good trend. i think all of that is extremely positive. again, it gets down to what do you do on a daily basis that's going to make your skin look nice. i have had no enhancements yet. >> you look great. >> yet i think about it. >> you're amazing. >> i think about it. i take really good care. i wash my face every night. i slather serums and creams. >> a week's worth of walks. >> don't tell me it's perverted. >> it's not.

a week's worth of walks to maintain brain health. >> that's my parents. >> they are still climbing bee hive and do those things. >> my mom works with a chainsaw and an ax. >> he's going to hit on you. >> i'm just reporting facts. you were on the front page of "the post" because you came out and said you were looking to date. >> one of my rules is to maintain, you know, the healthy lifestyle and to maintain relationships. and i haven't had a boyfriend for a while. i thought i would join match.com. that's what i'm up to. >> the next day had a match maker on and said if we were going to set martha up with three guys -- >> he's obsessed with himself. >> it was jack nicholson, myself and so i was curious. >> nobody told me this. >> i was curious. we've been friends. i was curious --

>> you are always out with the hot babes. i see him in restaurants. >> how old is your latest love? >> i date a beautiful woman who is 43 years old. >> right. and how old are you? >> 55. i would call that age appropriate. >> if she dies, she dies. >> martha, the guy we were looking at when we were on the "today" show set going through the different guys, i like the guy with the birds and the horses. did you call him? >> yeah. >> when are we going to be on the air? >> i'll let you know how it goes. i'm not sharing the entire episode with the public by the way. >> you look great. she's great. m martha is the best. >> you should read it. all of a sudden, you're going to be old. >> i'm already there. >> that was wonderfully mean. >> with a smile on her face. >> it's not mean at all. i care. i care. >> thank you. >> this book is awesome.

i can't wait to go through it. i'm going to keep it by my bed and read it every night. will you come back on the show when joe is here? >> i love joe. i'm sorry he's not here today. >> we'll get you back. we'll do it again. the book is "living the good long life, a practical guide to caring for yourself and others." martha stewart, thank you so much. all right. coming up next, an update on the deadly tornadoes in texas and also today's business headlines. keep it here on "morning joe." i'm here at walmart with chenoa,

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house. a search and rescuer going through the house searching for anyone possibly. there's about 14 people unaccounted for. it's amazing to look at these scenes. earlier in the show we showed you the cleburne area that was hit hard. granbury, much worse. this is very, very strong tornado that ripped through this entire community. it's amazing that we only have heard as many as six people are dead. i wouldn't be surprised if at the press conference this morning that number goes up. incredible scenes. these pictures, i mean, literally when the roofs are torn off and these are well constructed. these are expensive homes in this area. we're talking about winds up to 150, 160 miles per hour. this tornado was on the ground from 8:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., maybe 9:30. at one reported one mile wide tornado. it literally dropped out of the sky right on top of granbury where the guy was going through the home and made its way to where you look at right now about 30 miles away in cleburne

and then the storm dissipated after that. the worst tornado we've seen so far this year in the lower 48 and again the search and rescuers still have work cut out for them. so many homes were just destroyed and brought to the ground. you can imagine how long it takes to go through this. we're hoping some people will be found rescued in the rubble. for people in granbury, texas, this is going to be one very long recovery process. right now we're still in the search and rescue phase. >> devastating. thank you. business before the bell now with brian shactman. a big jump in weekly unemployment numbers. >> jumped by 32,000. a lot of data to go through here. consumer prices down .4% mainly because gas prices have pulled back. also housing starts down 16.5%. building permits were up. either way it's a net negative. highest jobless claim since march and stock futures are down and s&p went negative. a couple things to point out. derivatives market, mortgage backed securities which led to

financial crisis, today they vote on regulations and it turns out they won't be that heavy handed on the banks. they were supposed to have them give five price quotes and now only two or three. five banks have 90% of the business. and so it's still centered. too big to fail seems to still kind of being in place. >> talk about lessons not learned. >> and google relaunched google maps and the music service. they are all in the race for the same stuff. google seems to be taking a lot of shots at apple and has more traction. google apple struggled with maps and now if google can get people to do their music service -- >> these google guys may make it. they may stay around. >> they may do okay. >> okay. up next, take a look at this. >> yes. >> how much would you pay for this picture? >> to keep it out of your house?

i would pay $2 million. how much did it go for at the auction? >> we're not telling the whole story. we'll be right back. with the new staples rewards program

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>> let's take a look at johnstown, pennsylvania. >> that's bad running shoes and tube socks. what's that? >> that's a deer in front of a

bus. >> he needs to get there on time. >> stop and open the door. open the door. >> that's cruel. >> it looks really mean. >> there's a happy ending. bambi gets out the door. unhurt flies into the woods. >> you know what's cruel? guys that have guns and aim them at animals like that. i'm just saying. >> i'm not much of a hunter myself. >> you are full of inappropriate comments. >> that's not inappropriate. >> if you had a gun in your backyard, what would you do in this situation? look at the bear in a neighborhood in california hanging out at the pool. >> it's a nice bear. it's like yogi. >> look how cute. >> watch the pool party. he's going to come into a pool party and people are going to go. the key here as was pointed out to me, everyone took their drinks with them. it's important. you just made the vodka tonic and you don't want the bear to have it. >> let me say before you go on,

i was 5 and i fell into diane smith's pool like the woman who wrote the book with me. her husband picked me up out of the pool while holding his drink. didn't even put it down. didn't spill it a bit. and saved a child's life. >> it would be different if we didn't have you. >> thank you, brian. >> okay. art enthusiast. a good art conversation off camera. new york auction yesterday. this is just a portion of the controversial -- >> i want to see the whole thing. >> it's bea arthur. it includes her breasts. >> naked? >> people are still digesting their breakfast. >> it went for 2 million bucks. bea arthur never posed for the

photo. it was painted in the artist's imagination. >> i couldn't paint her naked or clothed. >> you couldn't because she's dead. >> let's end this. >> i haven't been on tv in a couple hours. >> we need to talk about your schedule. up next, what, if anything, did we learn today? here's your business travel forecast. after yesterday's storms went through texas and the damage they did, the question is will they have more today? we'll see thunderstorms but it doesn't look like strong, intense thunderstorms that can produce tornadoes. could have hail out there. notice how many spots have a chance of strong storms today from denver to kansas city

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time to talk about what we learned today. i'm almost scared to ask you. >> i learned an interesting and troubling fact. martha said as of next year half of this country will be over 65. forget the obvious health issues, that's scary for this country. more than half of the country is in a retirement mode, that is not a productive mode to be in. it concerns me. >> a lot of changes need to happen. mike barnicle? >> there are no depths to the degenerate of donny deutsch. >> you're a pervert. >> what you said about donny, i'll continue on that theme. how graceful did martha say no? >> she's so out of your league. >> you can't blame a guy for

trying to claw up. >> you should know when it's not worth trying. >> you know i love you. it's time for chuck todd on "the daily rundown." chuck? president obama says the acting irs commissioner is out. white house in damage control mode. what big steps might they take to do more than just stop the bleeding? devastation in texas. at least six people are dead. another dozen or so are still missing and many more injured after a tornado